Sociology of Possibility: An Invitation to Legitimation Code Theory

Legitimation Code Theory or ‘LCT’ is having significant impact on research and practice, especially in education. Around the world, scholars and educators are using LCT to reveal the usually hidden ‘rules of the game’ that underlie achievement in social arenas as varied as education, law and media. These ‘legitimation codes’ are then taught and learned or mindfully changed to give access and success to more people. This book is the first ever introduction to LCT, written by its creator and based on thirty years of developing the framework in empirical research. It is the book for learning how to creatively enact this approach in your own work.

Sociology of Possibility explains the theoretical toolkit of LCT, how its concepts fit together, the ways of thinking they support, and how the framework opens up more possibilities for research. The book carefully defines LCT tools and draws on empirical studies of a wide range of real-world problems to illustrate how they can help you explain more in your research. It shows how these studies embrace the endless diversity of the social world through a shared conceptual language that supports knowledge-building. Chapters also walk you through using the concepts in ways that embrace both qualitative and quantitative methods, both rich empirical description and sharp theoretical analysis, and in interdisciplinary collaborations with other approaches. Sociology of Possibility will open your eyes to the extraordinary empowering and explanatory potential of this innovative approach. If you are looking for a sophisticated framework that will help you offer solutions to real-world problems, whether as a postgraduate student, teacher trainer, academic developer or educator, this book is where you should begin.

Karl Maton is Professor of Sociology at the University of Sydney and Honorary Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and Rhodes University. He is the creator of Legitimation Code Theory, a widely used framework that is having significant impact around the world, especially in education.